Wednesday, May 7, 2008

is something burning?

i wasn't intentionally waiting to post the wheelchair story to make you ask for it...seriously...i just haven't had time to sit down and write it out until now. (and a sidenote, this isn't the wheelchair story that tisha has heard...that one is funny but i am DEFINITELY NOT posting that one on the blog for lots of reasons. if you want to hear that one, you'll have to email me and i will have to call you or tell you in person.)

anyway, back to the point of the post...the story.

i'm sure all of you remember the saga of the big toe surgery. i mean, seriously, who would forget about the 5 or 10 posts solely about my big toe? classic blogging material if i've ever seen it ;). because of the big toe surgery, i was not allowed to walk on my foot for 4 weeks and was on crutches. now, walking on crutches occasionally is no big deal but i work at a pretty big church and it was just easier to borrow a wheelchair from our media center (aka library) during office hours. i only used the wheelchair when i had to make long journeys (from my office to the chapel, from my office to the worship center, from my office to the courtyard, etc.) and not to mention the fact that it made my journeys to all those other places much faster. i am not such a quick traveller on crutches. so, my sweet and amazing assistant, lisa, took it upon herself to try to convince our media center director to let me borrow a wheelchair from their "stash" (and by stash, i mean 2 wheelchairs) for 4 weeks. well, the first wheelchair that they brought me had a flat tire. do you know how hard it is to push a person in a wheelchair with a flat tire? it's hard. just ask lisa. (and i'm not even going to talk about how hard it is to push yourself if there's a flat tire because i tried and decided it was too hard so i quit. good to know i persevere through difficult times, huh? ;)

so, they brought me the second chair and i'm not even kidding that this chair was seriously for a teenager or a child. it was much smaller than your average wheelchair but i was determined that it was going to work AND i was not going to complain because i had sent lisa down to the media center on more than one occasion to deal with the wheelchair drama. now, i am not going to lie to you or convince you that i don't have big hips, i do. i'm not oblivious to this fact. so, i would squeeze myself into this wheelchair every day and it worked just fine. no flat tires, no big issues except for one thing...the first morning i rode in it i noticed that the sides of my thighs were burning. at first, i couldn't figure out at all what was wrong and thought something very wrong was going on with me. then, i realized that in order for my big hips to fit in the teenage wheelchair, it pushed the metal sides out and they were rubbing against the wheels. the faster someone pushed me, the more it burned. now, i never said a word to anyone about this (until monday on the phone with cari) because i was embarrassed (and now i'm blogging about it. i have no shame...no shame, i tell you). i mean, who wants to say to some saint who is pushing you around the church, "excuse me, can you go a little slower because when you push me really fast, the metal that my big hips are pushing against the wheels gets really hot and burns my thighs." so, i just smiled and endured the burning. i did, though, worry a few times when my coordinator's children or my nephews had been pushing me to see how fast they could push me that we might just burn a hole through that metal and that we were perhaps producing sparks...can you just picture that in your head? (and in the process, burn a hole in my clothes. now, that would have been quite the tragedy. not to mention that if i had returned a wheelchair that had holes burned in the side of it to the media center, i don't even want to think of the consequences). thankfully, that did not happen and nothing was burned or scorched through the entire process. whew. i still see that chair around campus every now and then...it usually has teenagers riding in it (you know, sprained ankle, broken leg, etc.). i just shake my head and think, "amygrayson, you are a nut that you squeezed your big hips in that little chair."

so, there is the wheelchair story in a nutshell. i am concerned that it is not as funny as you all thought it was going to be. hopefully, it wasn't too much of a let down.

Sorry, I'm behind on my blog-reading....unfortunately, it hasn't taken top priority in the last week. :)This story is a HOOT! I could imagine you telling it in person! It reminded me of the song "Disco Inferno." Remember that song? I'd change the words a bit. Burn, baby, burn...wheelchair inferno....burn, baby, burn. :) If you don't know that song, then that's going to sound really stupid and I'll just have to sing it for you on Sunday. I know you'll look forward to that.